Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Microsoft Spotlights Its Search Engine Microsoft's Internet search engine, in the works for about two years, is ready for its big-time debut. Microsoft is announcing on Tuesday that the search engine it built from scratch is taking center stage at the company's Web portal, MSN.com, which previously had relied on search technology from rival Yahoo. "The whole goal with our new search service is to deliver answers faster to users," says Mark Kroese, MSN's general manager of information services product management. "In a world where the search engine user experience is getting lots of links but no answers, we're really focused on giving users quick answers to their questions." Since November, Microsoft's search engine had been in a public test--or beta--mode in a special section of the MSN.com portal, while the main search section continued to be powered by the Yahoo technology.